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The American Farm Bureau Federation believes that it’s simply cheaper to pollute America’s rivers and streams – and pass the cost on to water utilities like the Des Moines Water Works – than it is to adopt conservation practices that help reduce polluted runoff from farm fields.

Around the world, food production occupies more land than any other human activity (about 40 times the area of all cities and suburbs combined), uses more freshwater than anything else people do and is a major source of carbon pollution in the air and nitrogen pollution in the water.

So it should be obvious that the food choices we make in supermarkets, restaurants and in our homes have a big influence on the world around us. Making small changes in what we eat can have big environmental benefits.

Every year, EWG’s editors ask our colleagues on the EWG staff to tell us what they consider the Top 10 environmental stories of the year in each of the two topic areas covered by the two blogs on EWG’s website – Enviroblog and AgMag. All of us – from senior scientists to policy analysts to web designers to support staff and even management – get a chance to nominate as many stories as we want. From those two lists each staff member then votes for what she or he considers the three most important stories in each category.

In 2007, corn ethanol was offered up as an environmentally friendly alternative to gasoline. But nearly seven years to the day since Congress put it in play, we’re still not seeing the benefits. In fact, quite the opposite.

Some members of the U.S. Congress don’t want you to know how the food you eat strains natural resources. That’s the meaning of a statement attached to the omnibus federal spending bill Congress sent to President Obama last Saturday.

America needs a national labeling law for genetically engineered foods. That was the consensus of a majority of the members of Congress from both sides of the aisle during a well-attended subcommittee hearing Wednesday on the Food and Drug Administration’s role in regulating genetically modified food.

In what has become an annual ritual, Congress unveiled this week a massive spending bill to keep the government going, which includes provisions that would cut hundreds of millions of dollars from vital programs that protect our land and water.

A new study, published today (Dec 10th) in the Proceedings of the Royal Society of London shows that organic farmers can achieve yields nearly as large as their counterparts practicing conventional agriculture. And they can still cultivate crops without highly toxic pesticides and synthetic fertilizers that pollute groundwater and stimulate algae blooms that suffocate marine life.

Corn ethanol production has soared to record heights this year, and with large harvests and low corn prices, that means record profits for the industry. Yet even with ethanol refiners making money hand over fist, the industry still claims it needs a government mandate to stay afloat.

Critics of EWG research that highlights the runaway conversion of pasture, forest and rangeland to grow row crops like to claim that our findings are contradicted by the Census of Agriculture published by USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service. They say that the census shows that acreage under cultivation is actually dropping. There’s just one problem with that.

According to a new study from the Department of Energy, corn ethanol has helped drive down the energy content in a gallon of gasoline by 3 percent since 1993. And less energy per gallon means fewer miles per gallon.

Contrary to the claims of food industry giants and biotechnology companies, requiring labels on genetically engineered food won’t drive up food prices. Labeling would not ban the technology or force farmers and manufacturers to switch to non-GE ingredients; it would simply require that food containing GE ingredients be labeled, so that consumers can make informed decisions about what they want to eat.

“Natural flavor” is the fourth most common ingredient listed in EWG’s Food Scores, which rates more than 80,000 foods on their degree of nutrition, ingredient concerns and processing concerns. But what is “natural flavor” exactly? Are natural flavors really better than artificial flavors?

So far, less than 1 percent of Brazilian food sales are “organic” (though sales are growing). And, when experts looked more closely, they found that many Brazilian consumers are more likely to buy foods labeled as genetically engineered – especially if they claim to provide a nutritional benefit.

More than 440,000 acres of food crops – including potatoes, peas, grapes and tomatoes – could soon be in the toxic spray zones of a weed-killing chemical linked to Parkinson’s disease and reproductive and immune system problems, now that the Obama administration has approved a new herbicide for widespread use, an EWG analysis shows.